13 Nov 2013

Lily Allen Wants You To Know It's Hard Out Here For A Bitch

Pretty sure everybody in the known universe (or at least the twitterverse, what with her cryptic reveal and hashtag #HOH) has seen Lily Allen's new video, but in case you haven't it's here.

First up let me just say how INSANELY OVER THE MOON HAPPY I am that Lil is back. Her sass was the soundtrack to my coming-of-age. Ever since she found success she's slipped a cheeky little social comment into her music - Everyone's At It about casual drug use, or The Fear, her previous pop at celeb culture.

That's what Hard Out Here is about - the blatant sexism that permeates most pop culture music videos, the obsession with 'bitches' being skinny, and twerking all over rappers, their cars and chains.

However Lily's feminist video, though I would argue it's a tongue-in-cheek, sassy kinda feminism rather than an aggressive po-faced kind, has been criticised for featuring just as much unnecessary jiggling of flesh as the Miley Cyrus and Robin Thicke videos that it mocks.

But...isn't that kind of the point? Yeah, the butt-slapping in bikini's IS totally ridiculous and almost offensively unnecessary. Just like in the authentic videos that we don't question, because they aren't sending themselves up, perhaps?! The criticism came from the fact it was mainly ethnic minorities dancing, but Lily released this statement on twitter today effectively telling everyone to STOP BEING SO BLOODY STUPID. (what she actually said was "Whilst I don’t want to offend anyone. I do strive to provoke thought and conversation. The video is meant to be a lighthearted satirical video that deals with objectification of women within modern pop culture.")

Whilst it's hard to reconcile the fact that this is the girl who in this same week released saccharine sweet and totally innocent song from the John Lewis Christmas advert, I am also BEYOND excited to see how they edit this for the radio.